


The Babysitter's Club

by Friendlylycanthrope



Series: Let's Talk About It [16]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, One Shot, best friend squad - Freeform, now with cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24328378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Friendlylycanthrope/pseuds/Friendlylycanthrope
Summary: One shot town, here we come! In today's episode: which of the BFS is capable of handling a baby?!
Relationships: Adora/Catra, Glimmer/Adora
Series: Let's Talk About It [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714624
Comments: 5
Kudos: 91





	The Babysitter's Club

  
  
  


They rushed to the aid of a mining town that was under attack. If they had resources, the horde wanted it; they were desperate for anything that would give them an edge over the rebellion. It was late afternoon when they got there, the sky was orange with dusk. 

It was the four of them against an armada of tanks and soldiers. Glimmer used her teleportation to get people to safety while Bow watched Adora’s back from a safe distance, firing arrows at bogeys on her six. She-Ra was bringing the heat down on the horde attackers, swinging left and right. Catra was helping Glimmer get people out of harm’s way, keeping one eye on the action.

It was her first mission out in public since she had defected. Before when she was on her own, she couldn’t show her face; she was public enemy number one, and there was a large bounty on her head. So she kept her face hidden, and just helped people get away unharmed, did as much sabotage to the machines as she could and hoped it would annoy Hordak. But now that she had back up, she was ready to fight the invasion head on. 

Which turned literal, when a soldier grabbed her from behind and restrained her body. Catra snapped the back of her head into their face, and he reeled back, releasing her. 

“Wear a helmet, dumbass!” She seized his stun baton and turned it against him, and he fell unconscious. She tossed the baton, then waved an all clear. 

“This way, quick!” She heralded a group of civilians out of the town and into the woods. Glimmer appeared in her usual manner, helping one of them to their feet when they tripped, and helped them escape the burning town. 

“That’s the last of them!” Glimmer informed Catra. She had a cut on her face and her clothes were filthy from going in and out of buildings to check for people, but otherwise they were both fine. 

“Finally!” Catra seemed deviously happy as a small explosion sounded in the distance. “We get to join the action!” Her eyes lit up at the prospect of battle. Glimmer groaned and rolled her eyes. 

“Yeah fine, let’s go help Adora.”

Adora was still plugging away at tanks and soldiers in the large town square with ease. Arrows came from the clock tower behind her and immobilized the biggest threats. Glimmer and Catra jumped right into the fray and chaos seamlessly, and started fighting the remaining soldiers. 

Seeing Catra and Adora together in battle was like watching a martial arts display. The horde may have pitted them against each other for simulation training, but they also worked as a team with the rest of their squad, and that meant that they had grown up fighting with each other’s styles. It shaped the way they learned combat, and they learned how to work in perfect synchronization. It was as effective as it was beautiful to watch. Unless you were who they were fighting against. Which for the horde soldiers invading this town to take it’s mine, was bad news.

She-Ra was the heavy hitter, barely having to move from her spot as opponents rushed her, just swinging her fists into those in her way. As though rehearsed, Catra deftly avoided all of her movements all while staying within arms reach of the goddess of power. Catra was perfectly in tune with her actions, able to predict every movement, and together they formed an unbreakable cyclone of fists, taking out one soldier after another. Adora swung slow and powerfully while Catra made quick sweeping movements and snatched around to disable her foes. They were back to back, turning this way and that, but always watching the 6 of their partner. The arrows stopped raining for a moment while Bow was entranced at their intricate dance, and Glimmer’s face felt hot all of a sudden watching them. At one point, She-Ra put a soldier into a choke hold, then bent over, and Catra effortlessly leaned back, flipped over, and landed in front of Adora to disarm him. Then she took his arm and twisted it in such a way that Adora let go and he went sailing face first into the dirt. A practiced strategic move, clearly. 

Watching them in action was like seeing some rehearsed martial arts action, one stunt after another. Glimmer started to realize that Adora was always fighting like that. She was always moving slow but hard, moving little, barely thinking, but usually she struggled a bit more. But now, it was like she had her other half back. That gap she didn’t know had existed was filled and even Adora didn’t realize the difference it made or how to work with Catra’s movements again, maybe even Catra hadn’t realized. They just did it on instinct, combining their two fighting styles flawlessly and becoming unstoppable.

They continued pulling out special combos like that until the soldiers were forced to retreat with their tails between their legs. Glimmer hadn’t even realized that she had stopped fighting to watch them with her mouth open until Bow wrapped her in a victory hug.

Adora changed the sword back, then herself, and was finally able to catch her breath. The day moon was setting in brilliant hues in the sky as they watched the tanks roll back, having decided it wasn't worth the effort anymore. 

“Glimmer, did you get hurt?” Adora asked, reaching up to the cut on her face. Adora worried about their welfare enough to make up for her own lack of welfare for herself. Glimmer took her hand in her own and kissed her cheek. 

“It’s nothing.” She reported. “Everyone got out okay.”

“You guys, that was amazing!” Bow celebrated loudly, wrapping one arm around Adora and pumping the other into the air. “That was the coolest thing that I’ve ever seen!”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Glimmer smiled proudly, more calmer than Bow was. “You two were unstoppable!” Adora became bashful and looked away, rubbing her neck.

“Hell yeah.” Catra said tiredly. She was sitting on a rock, trying to groom her fur back to normal from the chaos of battle. She didn’t seem especially interested, but liked being praised anyway. 

“You guys have got to teach us some of those moves some time!” Bow continued, placing his hands on Catra’s shoulders. Her face became irritated as she pinched his finger back until he let go with a pained cry.

“Bowseph, no touching.” She reminded him. 

“Still not my name.” He said, ever as cheery as he cradled his red pinky. 

“Okay well, I guess we should camp out since it’s getting late.” Adora observed. “Wouldn’t want to travel the woods in the dark.”

“Sure, I think that--”

“Wait, shush,” Catra shut Bow up with one finger. She stood up with her eyes and ears alert to sounds in the wrecked buildings around them. “Do you guys hear that?” They all stood still, straining to listen hard but finding nothing but the wind around them. 

“No?” Adora spoke up first. Catra looked around in every shadow, turning her head like a wild animal searching for food. Her ears turned and bent, trying to locate the source of the sound. 

“What do you hear?” Glimmer asked. 

“You guys seriously don’t hear anything?” 

She started to wander closer to one of the buildings. A tank had plowed through one corner of it on its way in, and it was spilling over to one side as a result. The rubble and ruins were dusty and earthy as she picked her way through the debris, climbing over it inside. The other followed at a hesitant distance. 

“It--it sounds like somebody is here. I can hear them crying.” She explained. 

The building had been a simple two-story home, made of clay. The furniture was barricaded against the door, which did little good now that they were missing most of a wall. They started their search, listening hard for any signs of life. 

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Catra called out. 

“We’re here to help!” Glimmer said, pushing open a closet door. The main floor was two main rooms, a living area with a dining table, and a kitchen. There weren’t many places to hide. 

“Is anybody there?” Adora called out. 

“What the!” They looked at Catra, and found that her face was one of utter shock, probably due to finding a small toddler hugging her leg all of a sudden, his face all wet with tears as he pinched his eyes shut. Adora gasped. Catra looked to the others in a way that said  _ Oh it’s okay, it’s just a kid  _ but also portrayed a sense of  _ well now the fuck what? _

The boy was probably no more than a year old, and a fawn person with dark brown fuzz on his skin. His horns hadn’t appeared on his head yet, but they would as he grew. He was still sniffling in fear, making only the lightest pitch of a whining noise, as he gripped Catra’s with his little hands bunched up in the fabric of her pants, something she was clearly uncomfortable with, but didn’t know what to do. Glimmer was there in a flash, crouching down to him. 

“Hey, hey,” She said soft and comfortingly. “It’s okay, you’re safe now. It’s okay now.” He peeked open one little eye, but still hid behind Catra from her, shaking like a leaf in the wind. 

“Come here,” Glimmer picked him up and held him on her hip, but he hid his face, making himself a tight ball in the fetal position. “Hey, my name is Glimmer. What’s your name?” 

An inaudible mumble escaped his lips, he rubbed the tears off his face, but they continued to fall from his wet eyes. 

“What was that?” Bow asked gently. 

“Olan...” He answered a little louder, opening his eyes. His sight landed on Catra, and his expression changed slightly. He instantly lifted his arms out to her, the universal sign that he wanted her to hold him, which was as confusing to her as it was everybody else. Her face was blank, as was her brain for a minute.

“Uuuuuuuhhh, hi.” She said deadpan. A look from Glimmer prompted more out of her to comfort him. “Uh, my name is Catra.” she reached out a hand to--what, shake his hand? She was out of her depths here. Olan put his fingers in her arm fuzz, played with the hair that she had  _ just _ groomed down, and Glimmer ended up handing him over to Catra to hold. She came to her senses a little bit more, and gently put his hand away from her exposed fur, and tried to smooth it down. 

“Please don’t it feels _ so _ weird all sticking up like that,” she tried to reason with him, but his baby hands continued to make their way to her light tan-orange fur. “Come one for the love of--well, you should know!” She was becoming exasperated with the effort to stop him, until she gave up. He lay his head down on her shoulder and rubbed her fur in all the wrong ways. She looked pleadingly at her teammates for help. Bow looked like he might die of cuteness, hands on his own face as he smiled wide. Glimmer seemed concerned, looking over the pair of them trying to think of something, and Adora seemed just as confused as Catra did. 

“Oh, your fur,” Glimmer said softly, not to disturb the baby. “He’s a faun, you probably remind him of his mother. That or he thinks you are his mother?” 

Catra’s eyes went wide with fright and she tried to hold the child further away from her body as she made a gross face. 

“Okay, I am  _ not _ taking this lil dude home,” She declared. Olan whined and bunched his fingers, wanting to be close to her again. “We have to find it’s parents.”

“Yeah, obviously we will.” Adora said. She brought herself closer and ruffled his dark head of hair. She could feel his thick skull underneath, like a goat. “But all the people in town are gone, they probably went to the next village over until they can return. We’ll have to keep him close until we find his town.”

“Adora is right, we can’t just leave him here but his folks are nowhere near here.” Glimmer agreed. “Do any of you guys have experience with kids? Bow, you have a ton of siblings, right?”

“Yeah, but I was the youngest! Don’t know a darn thing.”

“Ugh. Adora?”

“I mean, I put in a few hours at the horde nursery, like  _ ten years ago _ when we were cadets.” She didn’t sound confident. 

“Ugh! Catra?”

“Don’t look at me, I skipped all my volunteer hour shifts in training!”

“What about you, Glim?” Adora asked. 

“I never got to grow up with other kids, much less be put in charge of younger ones!” She huffed. “I guess we’ll have to defer to you two on this one.”

“What--why me?!” Catra complained. She tried putting the kid down, but he wrapped his arms around her neck and was hanging from her like a necktie. He smiled for the first time. 

“Well he’s clearly attached to you.” Adora said with a stupid shit-eating grin. Bow and Glimmer snorted to contain their giggles. 

“Oh haha, very funny  _ Adora _ .” Catra rolled her eyes as she continued to laboriously pry the child off her body, but he was too stubborn and clingy to relinquish her. “Let’s just get this kid back to  _ any capable adult _ and get this over with.”

They left the building the same way they came, and went to find a camping spot in the woods. It would be a half day journey to get to the townspeople that had fled to the next village. Adora couldn’t help but keep looking over her shoulder to see how Catra was handling Olan. She maintained a grumpy, pouting face while Olan tugged her hair. She would swat his hands away from her ears constantly, but he still wasn’t getting it. 

Watching Catra deal with him as patiently as she could, it made Adora feel some kind of way. Her face felt warm and she felt like smiling. There was a tingling feeling low in her abdomen, she wanted to watch them continue to annoy each other all night. Not only because it was funny to tease Catra, which was also very tempting, but because it made her realize that Catra really had changed so much since she knew her in the horde. She just wished that she could have been a part of those changes, helped her with them... and her stomach would turn down with guilt, and she’d focus on the task at hand. 

Later in the evening, Catra kneeled down, trying to spark a campfire for them at their spot in the woods. But her flint was old and worn after her time in the woods, and would spark slightly, but never enough to light the tinder that Bow had provided. Glimmer watched Olan sitting on the ground behind Catra, clumsily trying to catch her waving tail as it flicked to and fro. His nubby little hands followed its flickering, waving movements in the air, and he smiled and laughed as he chased it while he sat behind her. Glimmer was certain that Catra wasn’t doing it intentionally, surely she had just forgotten about Olan and was expressing herself with her tail the way she always did. But then, Catra looked back over her shoulder momentarily, enough to check that the tot was still there and not getting into trouble, and Glimmer could swear that she saw the faintest hint of a smile in her yellow eye before she turned back to lighting a fire. It was so quick that she could have almost missed it, but Glimmer was certain that there was some sort of emotion there, something in between fondness and pride, where Catra sat with the confidence that nobody had seen her. It was so charming, so unlike Catra in a situation like this, that Glimmer wasn’t sure if she had imagined it. She could be soft and even loving in times sure, but only when her company had really deserved it. When Adora lay near death from the virus, for example. But never when someone was clinging to her at every moment, tugging her hair and messing up her fur and doing nothing for her. She was patient and gentle, even though her words were sharp and hot. 

A second later, some sparks caught on the tinder and Catra blew on it until it grew, feeding it more fuel until it was big enough to remain sustained. Olan saw the new thing, and crawled forward to investigate. 

“Easy there, lil dude.” Catra said, pulling him back onto her lap by his hips. “No touch.” She warned him. As one could predict from a young child, he reached out again. Catra again pulled him back with an annoyed sigh. “No no no; no getting maimed.” She seemed to have his attention now, and he looked at her while he pointed at the fire. “No no no.” She repeated, holding back his hand. “God this kid has zero survival instincts. How do these things survive infancy?”

“People take care of them.” Glimmer said, scooting closer to the fire. “You’re doing really well with him. He doesn’t talk much, huh?”

“Not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse.” Catra started snapping some more sticks to feed into the fire, then reached out to prod the fire with a stick to let more air in underneath it. Olan reached out and put both hands on her arm. 

“No no no!” He echoed back to her. He even waved a finger disapprovingly like a parent, something he must have picked up from home. 

“Hey, who’s the adult here?” She sneered at the kid, throwing her fuel into the flames. 

“Aaaw, look! He’s taking after you, Catra!”

“Let’s hope not.” Catra said darkly. 

At that moment, Bow and Adora returned from their scout for supplies or food. Normally they would just skip the meal and eat when they got back to Bright Moon whenever a mission kept them out for the night, but they would need to find a solution for the toddler. Adora hadn’t found much other than nuts, but Bow found a handful of fruits they could all share. She split it up among them, then started cutting tinier chunks for Olan. For the first time, he seemed okay not being held by Catra while he teethed at the bits of fruit Adora offered him. Besides, Catra was still on his other side and always within view. 

“Well aren’t you a smart little man?” Adora cooed, handing him another bite-sized piece of fruit. “You gotta eat to grow up big and strong, yes you do.” For some reason it made Glimmer’s heart race, seeing such a strong and powerful and beautiful woman, the one she happened to be dating, coo and ogle over a little kid so gently and affectionately with excitement. She had no idea that Adora loved kids like this, as she cooed over him fondly. Her stomach flipped over and tied in a knot with excitement when she thought, extremely briefly, about her and Adora in the future, but she quickly shut that down telling herself it was way way too early and possibly unrealistic. But still, it was a comfort and a relief to see how Adora was with little kids that made her fall for Adora all over again.

“You guys are so cute!” Bow ogled. “Now that he’s calmed down it’s like a cute lil family!” Catra shot him a death glare from across the fire that went totally over his head as he watched Olan. 

“The sooner we can find his  _ actual _ family, the better.” Adora said. 

“Yeah my mom won’t let me take in any more strays I find in the woods.” Glimmer added humorously. 

“I think you guys are forgetting something important here?” Catra said coldly. “Even if we find his town, there’s no guarantee that his family is still alive.” Adora put her hands over his ears, but Catra continued. “Come on, it’s not like his parents would up and leave without their kid, what are we supposed to do with him?”

“Look, we don’t know much of anything right now.” Glimmer. “But we have to try. Besides, maybe one of his neighbors could take him in.”

“Whatever, as long as we don’t have to take him back to live with us.”

“Aaw, but he’s so fond of you, Catra!” Bow chimed in. As he spoke, Adora lifted her hands and Olan offered a piece of fruit to Catra. 

“What? I’m not taking that, gross.” But he only stood up on wobbly little legs and held it right up to her mouth, despite her discomfort. She had to lean back to avoid it, until she was lying on her back but he insisted, much to the entertainment of the other three. “No get that away from me-- guys a little help!” Adora picked him up and put him on her shoulders.

“The mighty Catra, bane of the rebellion, the Wild Cat of the horde, taken down by a toddler!” She teased, her hands coming up with her fingers curling like scary claws pointed at Catra. 

“Oh come on!” She dusted herself off. “Kids are gross!”

“So glad we found your weakness, in case you ever turn on us.” Glimmer elbowed her in the ribs. “Just corner her with a bunch of babies!” By now the laughter around the fire was an uproar, and Catra admit defeat, lying back down again and throwing up the bird to all of them. Olan mimicked the fake clawed gesture that Adora did, and softly went "rawr!" which Adora encouraged and copied until she had to sit down from laughing so hard. 

Their next challenge was taxing on all of them. Because as they tried to sleep, Olan would not. Stop. crying. All of them had to stay up until he went to sleep.

“Just tell us what’s wrong!” Catra was losing her patience. 

“He probably can’t, he’s still really little!” Bow informed her. 

She tried feeding him more bits of fruit, but he pushed it all away. 

“Okay, food is literally the only thing I know when it comes to fixing bad feelings. Any other ideas?”

“Wait, did you check his bottom?”

“Ew gross--Adora, you do it!” She was quick to shove the crying child into Adora’s unsuspecting arms.

“What, why me!”

“Well I’m not going anywhere near that stuff!”

“Oh come on, buck up, soldier!” An old slang from the barracks that Catra and Adora both recognized.

“Uggh, I don’t care who does it, just do it!” Glimmer ordered. Adora bit the bullet and took the charge. 

“Why does it have to be in the middle of the night!” Bow lamented while Adora got to work. But while she did find ‘results’ that needed fixing, Olan would not calm down. Catra shoved some fabric in her large ears. After all, her hearing was proven to be more sensitive than theirs. 

“I don’t know what else it could be!” Adora had to yell over the battle cry of the little one. “That’s all they taught us in the volunteer nursery forms that I could remember!”

“Ugh, give him here!” Catra swept him back up and held her in front of her. She wiggled her ears up and down, knowing that he had been desperate to get his hands on them before. He ignored them, as well as her tail when she waved that around for him to play with. “Eeeh, can we knock him out?”

“No!” the other three all yelled in unison. Adora took him back, since his usual comfort and entertainment didn’t seem to be working any longer. She paced back and forth, patting his back even if it was a little aggressive due to her anxiety, as though doing it harder may rush him to sleep. 

“Adora stop, you’re being too rough.” Glimmer stepped in and took the baby like a hot game of hot potato. But even though she slowed down and gently rubbed his back, he continued to cry. 

“Catra, you’ve got to do something!” Bow pleaded.

“Why do you keep thinking that I would know what to do!”

“I don’t know, you calmed him down before when we first found him! We wouldn’t have found him at all if it wasn’t for you!”

“Are you saying this is my fault?”

Bow raked his hands down his face. Clearly now was not the time to fight. Instead, he just pushed Catra towards Adora and Glimmer.

_ Okay, strategy time _ . Catra thought to herself.  _ Just imagine that it is a hostile enemy you need to subdue. Or a commander that you need to bribe to your side. Ugh okay, what do we know about this kid specifically? He can say a few words, he’s getting his teeth... he likes pulling on parts of me, but that didn’t work! UGH. Okay, when we first found him, uh, we actually didn’t find him. He found us. He found me? No, he came to me because he thought I was his mom, (allegedly). Okay fuck it, _

Catra took off her hooded cloak, leaving her in a basic short sleeved tunic shirt and exposing more of her arms and neck. She scooped Olan back into her arms, letting him feel the soft texture of her skin covered in fur not entirely unlike his own. He seemed to knead it with his fingers to comfort himself, but still cried. 

“If this  _ ever _ leaves this group, just know that I will hunt you down.” She glared at the other three before she pulled out her secret weapon. 

A low rumble started in her chest, then vibrated through her core in a steady rhythm with her breathing. It took a few minutes for them to figure out what was happening, and longer for it to show any effect on Olan. 

“Holy cow, Catra  _ purrs _ ?” Bow whispered to Glimmer and Adora. Both of them already knew about it, but Bow was seeing it for the first time, probably why Catra issued the warning in the first place.

“What? No. What is that? It’s her rumbles.” Adora whispered back. Nobody had explained to either her or Catra yet what cats were, or purring, or anything of that nature. 

To their surprise, it worked. It was slow progress, but he calmed down to just hiccuping cries rather than screaming. They all sat back down before turning in, worried it was a fragile safety that would be shattered at any moment. Even still, Bow fell asleep sitting up, legs criss-crossed and holding his head up with a hand that was anchored on his knee. 

“If any of you ever brings this up again I will rip out your tongues.” Catra whispered. Adora and Glimmer both felt their faces becoming warm under their skin, but nobody said anything. And then, they agreed to sleep.

Catra held Olan through the night for as much her own comfort as his. She had to make sure he wouldn’t wake up and toddle off into the woods or their fire. Other than that, there were no other interruptions.

The next morning they would continue to find the evacuees. They awoke early to Catra yelping in pain when Olan pulled her tail.

“Hahaha!” Olan giggled. “Cat!”

“No I told you, it’s Catra. Cat-RUH.” She enunciated. Bow and Glimmer gave each other the same knowing look, saying _shit,_ _nobody tell her_ as they realized that the boy was familiar with house cats and Catra was not. 

So they walked the rest of the way to the next village where, as they predicted, the town had gone to camp when they evacuated their town. 

“Okay, listen up!” Catra announced. There were so few of them gathered around here that she worried about casualties, but tried to remember that it was an incredibly small town to begin with. Olan was sitting on her shoulders, sucking his thumb with one hand and pulling her hair with the other. “It is safe to return to your town. Also: Who’s kid is this?”

“Oh! Oh, that--that’s my nephew! Olandius!!” a woman pushed her way through the crowd from the back. 

“Bobby!” Olan delightfully lifted his arms in recognition. 

“Oh, Olan! Thank heavens--” She was quick to be reunited with the little one, smothering him in affection and kisses and squeezing him tight. The group of four sighed in relief as they felt a weight lifted from their shoulders (literally for Catra since she had been carrying him there). The woman who claimed him looked like Catra, with tall pointy ears and a tail and fur across her skin, but she was silver colored with black hair. “Can’t thank you enough! I’ve been so worried!”

“Do you know where his parents are?” Catra asked. Since she was like Catra and the kid was more of a goat fawn, she doubted that she was the parent. At that, the woman’s face turned melancholy.

“I’ve been raising him for a few months, ever since his mother, my little sister, eh, she passed on,”

Catra shot a look of confusion at Adora. A goat fae the son of a magicat? Not that they knew what Catra’s race was called, but they were both wondering about the same thing. 

Not that it mattered. Olan clearly recognized his aunt, and all was well with the people who had escaped. They insisted that the group follow them back so that they could throw a party for them to celebrate, but they all sorely wanted to go back to their (child free) home. Then Catra could stop being a climbing post and go back to being a sarcastic annoying nuisance. 

Bow put a hand on her shoulder as they walked towards Bright Moon. 

“Hey, you handled that all really well, you know.”

“Shut up Bowseph, I have not had enough sleep for this.”

“No I mean it. I had no idea you were so good with kids.”

“I’m  _ not _ . Nothing about that was good.” She deadpanned tiredly. Her current levels of apathy would have given Mermista a run for her money. But Bow was far more interested in friendship than personal boundaries. 

“Still, it’s cute!”

“Call me cute again and so help me I will peel you.”

“I wonder if we’ll ever see that little guy again. Do you think he’ll remember us? Well, he’ll probably remember you.” At this point, the cotton had entered her ears again. 

Sometimes Bow reminded her of Scorpia. Those two would really hit it off if they ever met. 

Despite her avoidance of him and conversation, her mind still was on that little boy she had met. It was strange to think that he could be part magicat. His parents must have really cared for each other to risk having a kid in the middle of a war. She hoped that he would be okay in the future, and not be plowed down by the horde, or worse. 

During her time in power she learned where many of the recruits come from. She learned that the horde was in the business of making orphans. If they were under three years old, they couldn’t remember much. They would be brought back and put in the nursery, the same kind that the older cadets put volunteer hours at, and brought up as child soldiers. It could have been Olan. He would have been told that his parents abandoned him and he wouldn’t know any better. Then they would twist it as he grew up, saying that he should be grateful that the horde took him in until he felt loyal enough to actually do what they say, then assign him a squadron and unit to be his peers for the rest of his life when he started cadet training at eight years old. 

It might have been the hardest part of her job to acknowledge and live with, knowing that was happening. They needed recruits. Child soldiers, just like her. She had no idea where she came from and never would--they never left a paper trail. That’s why she needed to make her next plan work. That’s why she had to stop that son of a bitch Hordak. Olan was inches away from having his entire life be completely different. How close had she been to those odds? The more she learned, the more she understood why Adora left. She always did, but never could fully wrap her head around leaving behind their only home and hope, no matter how shitty it was, at the drop of a hat. 

She did hope that she would see Olan again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to one shot city, there will be a few more light heated and overall harmless one shots like this in the coming days!  
> Gimme comments


End file.
